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Urbs Sanctus Americana
|- |'Mayor' || Giovanni Cardinal Lombardi |- |'Area' || 468.9 mi² |- |'Population' || 8,550,000 citizens |- |} Urbs Sanctus Americana is the capital city of ResPublic Catholica. The city was the former City of New York in the days of the former United States of America. History The City of New York Before Urbs Sanctus Americana was established, it was once the City of New York, , one of the most important cities in the United States of America. The region was inhabited by about 5,000 Lenape Native Americans at the time of its European discovery in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the French crown, who called it "Nouvelle Angoulême" (New Angoulême). European settlement began with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement, later called "Nieuw Amsterdam" (New Amsterdam), on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1614. Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape in 1626 for a value of 60 guilders (legend, now disproved, says that Manhattan was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads). In 1664, the English conquered the city and renamed it "New York" after the English Duke of York and Albany. At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War the Dutch gained control of Run (a much more valuable asset at the time) in exchange for the English controlling New Amsterdam (New York) in North America. By 1700, the Lenape population was diminished to 200. New York City grew in importance as a trading port while under British rule. In 1754, Columbia University was founded under charter by King George II as King's College in Lower Manhattan. The city emerged as the theater for a series of major battles known as the New York Campaign during the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress met in New York City and in 1789 the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated at Federal Hall on Wall Street. By 1790, New York City had surpassed Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. In the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration and development. A visionary development proposal, the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the 1819 opening of the Erie Canal connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the North American interior. Local politics fell under the domination of Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish immigrants. Public-minded members of the old merchant aristocracy lobbied for the establishment of Central Park, which became the first landscaped park in an American city in 1857. A significant free-black population also existed in Manhattan, as well as in Brooklyn. Slaves had been held in New York through 1827, but during the 1830s New York became a center of interracial abolitionist activism in the North. Anger at military conscription during the American Civil War (1861–1865) led to the Draft Riots of 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history. In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), the County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens. The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904 helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication. However, this development did not come without a price. In 1904, the steamship General Slocum caught fire in the East River, killing 1,021 people on board. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the city's worst industrial disaster, took the lives of 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards. In the 1920s, New York City was a major destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South. By 1916, New York City was home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance flourished during the era of Prohibition, coincident with a larger economic boom that saw the skyline develop with the construction of competing skyscrapers. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1948, overtaking London, which had reigned for over a century. The difficult years of the Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello LaGuardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance. Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom and the development of huge housing tracts in eastern Queens. New York emerged from the war unscathed and the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's ascendance as the world's dominant economic power, the United Nations headquarters (completed in 1950) emphasizing New York's political influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitating New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world. In the 1960s, New York suffered from economic problems, rising crime rates and racial tension, which reached a peak in the 1970s. In the 1980s, resurgence in the financial industry improved the city's fiscal health. By the 1990s, racial tensions had calmed, crime rates dropped dramatically, and waves of new immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley, emerged in the city's economy and New York's population reached an all-time high in the 2000 census. The city was one of the sites of the September 11, 2001 attacks, when nearly 3,000 people died in the destruction of the World Trade Center. The city (and the entire country) was in mourning in the days folowing the September 11 Attacks. Plans were soon made to clean up and rebuild the World Trade Center. Plans were made to build a new World Trade Center, including the Freedom Tower, which would become one of the tallest buildings on Earth. Along with the buildings, a mass transit terminal and a memorial would be built. The new World Trade Center was completed soon before the destruction of Washington, D.C. End of An Era When the federal government of the United States fell after Washington, D.C. was destroyed by a nuclear bomb, the nation was left in chaos. New York City (as well as the rest of the nation) was left in the dark in the following days. Soon after, ResPublic Catholica was born in Manhattan. Once President PaoPer took power, the city was renamed Urbs Sanctus Americana, Latin for the American Holy City. A New National Capital The new Urbs Sanctus Americana would now serve as the national capital of ResPublic Catholica. The city has grown and prospered since the establishment of the new nation; however, things went bad once the republic was established. When ResPublic Catholica became a republic, its military grew too powerful for the size of the new nation because of a bill passed in the ResPublica Congress. The nation has since returned to a monarchy with Supreme PaoPer as its leader. Urbs Sanctus Americana, like the rest of the nation, is still in the process of reorganizing after the chaos and hopes to continue to flourish with the guidance of God. The City The Boroughs Urbs Sanctus Americana is comprised of seven boroughs, an unusual form of government used to administer the seven constituent counties that make up the city. Throughout the boroughs there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods, many with a definable history and character to call their own. Though the city has changed since it became the capital of ResPublic Catholica, the boroughs are still basically the same; however, the former Nassau County and Suffolk County have been added to the city. Manhattan is the most densely populated borough and home to most of the city's skyscrapers, as well as Central Park. The borough is the financial center of the city and contains the headquarters of many major corporations, the United Nations, as well as a number of important universities, and many cultural attractions, including numerous museums, the Broadway theatre district, Greenwich Village, and Madison Square Garden. Manhattan is loosely divided into Lower, Midtown, and Uptown regions. Uptown Manhattan is divided by Central Park into the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and above the park is Harlem. The Bronx is Urbs Sanctus Americana's northernmost borough, the site of Yankee Stadium, home of the New York Yankees, and home to the largest cooperatively owned housing complex in ResPublic Catholica, Co-op City. Except for a small piece of Manhattan known as Marble Hill, the Bronx is the only section of the city that is part of the ResPublic Catholica mainland. It is home to the Bronx Zoo, the largest metropolitan zoo in ResPublic Catholica, which spans 265 acres (107.2 hectares) and is home to over 6,000 animals. The Bronx is the birthplace of rap and hip hop culture. Brooklyn is the city's most populous borough and was an independent city until 1898. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods and a unique architectural heritage. It is also the only borough outside of Manhattan with a distinct downtown area. The borough features a long beachfront and Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the United States. Queens is the most ethnically diverse county in New York, and may overtake Brooklyn as the city's most populous borough due to its growth. Historically a collection of small towns and villages founded by the Dutch, today the borough is largely residential and middle class. It is the only large county in ResPublic Catholica where the median income among black African Americans, approximately $52,000 a year, is higher than that of White Americans. Queens is the site of Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets, and used to host the U.S. Open tennis tournament. Additionally, it is home to Urbs Sanctus Americana’s two major airports, LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport. Staten Island is the most suburban in character of the five boroughs. Staten Island is connected to Brooklyn by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and to Manhattan via the free Staten Island Ferry. The Staten Island Ferry is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Urbs Sanctus Americana as it provides unsurpassed views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and lower Manhattan. Located in central Staten Island, the 25 km² Greenbelt has some 35 miles (56 km) of walking trails and one of the last undisturbed forests in the city. Designated in 1984 to protect the island's natural lands, the Greenbelt encompasses seven city parks. The F.D.R. Boardwalk along South Beach is two and one-half miles long, which is the fourth largest in the world. Nassau is an urbanized borough, with pockets of rural affluence in the cliffs of the Gold Coast of the North Shore overlooking the Long Island Sound. South Shore communities are built along protected wetlands and white sand beaches fronting on the Atlantic Ocean, which bring additional pockets of rare rural affluence to Long Island. Old money from the time of the American Revolutionary War populated some of the island and still does to this day. Nouveau riches in the Roaring Twenties established large estates on the North Shore. Some have been donated to the public domain and become parks or museums; others have been redeveloped as conference or academic centers. Suffolk is the most eastern borough in the city. It occupies the eastern two thirds of Long Island, New York, which juts about 120 miles into the Atlantic. The borough covers roughly a thousand square miles of territory and is eighty-six miles long and twenty-six miles wide at the widest point. The weather is temperate, clean water abundant, and the soil is good and in fact, Suffolk is the leading agricultural county in the state of New York. That it is still number one in farming despite all of the building developments and urban sprawl is a tribute to the excellent soil, favorable weather conditions, and the farmers of this region. Climate Although it is not in the subtropics and its winters are cold, Urbs Sanctus Americana has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification) because the coldest month's average temperatures are not low enough for persistent snow cover. Urbs Sanctus Americana has cold winters but the city's coastal position keeps temperatures slightly warmer than inland regions, helping to moderate the amount of snow which averages 25 to 35 inches (63.5 to 88.9 cm) each year. Urbs Sanctus Americana has a frost-free period lasting an average of 199 days between seasonal freezes. Spring and autumn in Urbs Sanctus Americana are erratic, and can range from cold and snowy to hot and humid, although they can also be cold or cool and rainy. Summer in Urbs Sanctus Americana is hot and humid, with temperatures of 90 °F (32 °C) or higher recorded on average 18 to 25 days each summer. Though not usually associated with hurricanes, Urbs Sanctus Americana is susceptible to them, notably the 1821 Norfolk and Long Island hurricane which flooded southern Manhattan, and the New England Hurricane of 1938, which brushed the eastern end of the city. The city's long-term climate patterns have been affected by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a 70-year-long warming and cooling cycle in the Atlantic that influences the frequency and severity of coastal storms in the region. Environment Mass transit use in Urbs Sanctus Americana is the highest in ResPublic Catholica and gasoline consumption in the city is at the rate the national average was in the 1920s. New York City’s high rate of transit use saved 1.8 billion gallons of oil in 2006; Urbs Sanctus Americana saves half of all the oil saved by transit nationwide. The city's population density, low automobile use and high transit utility make it among the most energy efficient cities in ResPublic Catholica. Urbs Sanctus Americana’s greenhouse gas emissions are 7.1 metric tons per person compared with the national average of 24.5. In recent years the city has focused on reducing its environmental impact. Large amounts of concentrated pollution in Urbs Sanctus Americana lead to high incidence of asthma and other respiratory conditions among the city's residents. The city government is required to purchase only the most energy-efficient equipment for use in city offices and public housing. Urbs Sanctus Americana has the largest clean air diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas bus fleet in the country, and some of the first hybrid taxis. The city government was a petitioner in the landmark Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency Supreme Court case forcing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants. The city is also a leader in the construction of energy-efficient green office buildings, including the Hearst Tower among others. Urbs Sanctus Americana is supplied with drinking water by the protected Catskill Mountains watershed. As a result of the watershed's integrity and undisturbed natural water filtration process, Urbs Sanctus Americana has drinking water pure enough not to require purification by water treatment plants. Government As the capital of ResPublic Catholica, Urbs Sanctus Americana is home of most of ResPublic Catholica national government buildings. It is also home to the palace, home of Supreme PaoPer. Urbs Sanctus Americana is a metropolitan municipality with a "strong" mayor-council form of government. The government of Urbs Sanctus Americana is more centralized than that of most other ResPublic Catholica cities. In Urbs Sanctus Americana, the central government is responsible for public education, correctional institutions, libraries, public safety, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply and welfare services. The mayor and councillors are elected to four-year terms. The Urbs Sanctus Americana Council is a unicameral body consisting of 51 Council members whose districts are defined by geographic population boundaries. The mayor and councilors are limited to two four-year terms. The current mayor is Giovanni Cardinal Lombardi, a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. Urbs Sanctus Americana is the most important source of political fundraising in ResPublic Catholica, as four of the top five zip codes in the nation for political contributions are in Manhattan. The city receives 83 cents in services for every $1 it sends to the national government in taxes (or annually sends $11.4 billion more than it receives back). Located near City Hall are the courthouse for the ResPublic Catholica Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. Manhattan also hosts the Appellate Division, First Department. Brooklyn hosts the ResPublic Catholica District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and NY Appellate Division, Second Department. Since it is the national capital of ResPublic Catholica, the city does contain the ResPublic Catholica Supreme Court Building. As the host of the United Nations, Urbs Sanctus Americana is home to the world's largest international consular corps, comprising 122 consulates, consulates general and honorary consulate offices. Category:ResPublic Catholica